Pages

Microsoft was late to the virtualization business with its Hyper-V technology, and has been playing catch-up with market leader VMware.

Microsoft is the converged infrastructure counterweight to VMware, which has traditionally had strong reseller agreements with Cisco’s server rivals including HP, IBM, and Dell.

HP, VMware’s largest reseller partner, has already shown that it will use Microsoft as a way to keep VMware from growing too close to Cisco, and there is no reason to think IBM or Dell would not do the same.

Microsoft itself, however, has to be careful, as it also has a close relationship with EMC on the storage side and probably anticipates working closely with Cisco on that company’s server strategy.